


Beware, for I am fearless

by limitlessrose (shinealightrose)



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: But the ghosts are side characters, Gothic Au, Haunted House, Implied Mistreatment of servants, Implied Past Abuse, M/M, Slightly Supernatural, There might be werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28051071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/limitlessrose
Summary: Kun is a servant at the great but declining Dong estate, living day by day and befriending the household ghosts. Then, a sickly young master returns after fifteen years...
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Qian Kun
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Beware for I am fearless, and therefore powerful" - Mary Shelley
> 
> So this is something I've been writing for a while and is still a work in progress but it shouldn't be terribly long. Probably no longer than two chapters, or three depending on how it goes. I just really love exploring this kind of dark/gray gothic kind of style story PLUS I've never written this pair, or in fact written Kun as a main character at all and I'm excited! 
> 
> Note on the ghosts who wander about at will, yes they're dead but I'm not to explain how they died because that's just a step too dreary even for me.

There’s a muck about the air this morning. Something cold, still humid. The sun struggles to rise through a mist of fog, the ever-looming pewter of the sky. There will be a storm this afternoon. There always is this time of year. Kun knows that, the same as he knows if he doesn’t get done with this washing soon, old Mrs Yang will filet the back of his shins. 

Kun’s back aches where he crouches, curved over the wash basin. Once upon a time he was a scrawny kid with perpetually skinned knees and welts on the inside of his arms, the back of his legs. Now he’s stronger, smarter, faster. Muscled where he needs to be, disciplined when he must. He wipes his brow in a brief reprieve, enjoying the burn of his morning struggles, ever eyeing the glowing haze against the horizon, knowing he needs to beat the sun. 

The sheets he gets up on the drying rack well before time. They’re pristine and white. Unusually bright. One of the best sets of sheets in the house. 

“Kun!” whistles a shrill shriek from around the side of the house.

“Coming!” he shouts. 

All around him, the servants’ corner of the estate is bustling with activity. Some carry more bushels of clothes and linen, like him. Others this morning’s barrels of flour. A pig cries shrilly where it’s cornered against the yard, and Kun can already anticipate the smell of tonight’s dinner roast. Maybe if he’s quick, he’ll even manage to snag a scrap of the leftovers before it’s dumped into the slop bucket. 

“Out of my way!” Kun hears, narrowly dodging the mistresses’ own brigade of personal servants as they scatter into the yard, barking instructions to everyone lower ranked than them. 

Kun doesn’t have to bother with them though. He answers only to Mrs Yang, a pock-marked and wrinkled old woman who, rumor says, was the nursemaid to the estate’s very own master, years and years ago. 

Kun shudders to wonder what got her banished to scullery work if that’s true. There’s already enough misery about the place, he doesn’t technically need to know more. 

  
  
  


Kun has lived here all his life. At least that’s what he’s been told. Maybe he had parents, maybe he never did. Old Mrs Yang says they’re dead, but if so it didn’t happen anywhere near the Dong estate, or Kun would definitely have heard about it from someone alive, or dead. And around this place, the living talk a lot, but the dead talk more. 

All his life, he’s heard their whispers in the shadows, in the dark places. In the fog and in the mist. Kun reckons he can’t be the only person who hears them. The last time he dared mentioned them though, he was seven years old and earned himself a severe beating from the yard manager who told him to shut up if he valued his existence. Even now Kun remembers the sting of the whip. Remembers also the cold comforting hands that supported him silently, weightlessly, while he cried in his bed thereafter. 

  
  
  


Around midday the sky isn’t much brighter than when the day first broke. Kun snatches a bowl of gristle and porridge from the kitchen and, before anyone can ask him what he should be doing instead, steals off into the mist. 

No one’s ever asked him this, but Kun does have a favorite spot. It’s a little hideaway to the north of the estate which is masked from view by a row of overgrown, moss eaten trees. There’s a little trickle of a stream. Some subsidiary Kun guesses runs from the nearby lake. Almost nobody comes here aside from him and the ghosts who haunt this place. 

Perhaps it used to be nicer, when the estate was younger. Back when there was enough money and passion to be poured into more than survival amidst the stench of death. 

He eats as he walks, kicking over a rotten log and skirting around what might have been once a well-cared-for and engraved stone bench, many decades forgotten. The words can no longer be read, faded with time and decay. He knows what they say though. Someone, might have told him once. 

_To J., with love and to the memories we’ll make. ~ D.S._

Memories. What memories. Only the dead keep their memories now. 

Overhead is the remains of a once fine tree. In the dead of winter, its leaves are stripped and there’s hardly any shade. Some sickness only known to the arboreal community has otherwise stolen this tree’s every springtime flowering as well. Kun pushes past a low hanging branch, the bark a moist shade of gray, leaves yellow and spotted. 

Kun finds the drying rock by the stream and dreams of a better day. Someplace he won’t find in this life but maybe in the next, maybe in the past. 

He chooses a round pebble washed up on the bank, circles it between his fingers for a few precious moments, wondering how long he can get away with hiding. If it’s worth it. It usually is. 

Before leaving he slides the pebble across the top of the water’s surface. It skips twice before dropping with a little plop. 

Off somewhere to his right, another pebble skips across the stream, bounces three times before sinking and Kun doesn’t have to pretend he can’t feel the surge of smug triumph present about the place. Kun, no longer scared like when he was a young boy, smiles. 

“See you later,” he says. 

  
  
  


There’s a massive portrait that hangs behind the grand staircase in the center of the house. It’s full-bodied and stately, portraying a handsome man in his early thirties, broad shoulders and black hair, an arresting look. 

It’s a portrait of the master; Kun rarely glances at it. The resemblance doesn’t have any bearing to the master of the house who is now twenty years past his prime with graying hair, a haggard look, and a perpetual, persistent aura of anger. The master as Kun knows him today is a loud, irreverent man prone to violent rants and fits of rage and no one is safe when caught before him in one of those moods. Not his wife, not his staff and servants, definitely not the creditors who brave a visit once a month, or more rarely if they’re feeling sane at all. 

If ever Kun hears his voice coming down a hall, he’ll make a dash down a side hallway instead, or hide in another room, behind a tapestry, in a closet. Once, Kun’s feet took him tearing into an unused bedroom and, upon hearing the door slamming shut, with the master bellowing in anger, he slid quickly on the dusty floor under the massive four-poster bed. 

That’s how Kun met Dejun, one of the few fellow servants with whom Kun is on friendly terms. Surprised and shocked, but sharing one emotion sharper than all _—_ fear _—_ the two huddled there for what felt like hours until the footsteps of the master retreated and they dared to come at all. 

Dejun is yet another boy with no past. It’s not that unusual, Kun learns. There are lots of people who work for the Dong family who have either forgotten their origins or just plain don’t want to remember. Kun and Dejun are around the same age, unlike the others. They don’t meet one another, because such things are forbidden after all, but Kun always has a nice word for Dejun whenever they cross paths, and sometimes Dejun sneaks tasty desserts from the kitchen where he works and saves them in dirtied napkins for Kun. When no one’s looking, or late at night, Kun drags them out from his coat pockets, whichever has the least amount of holes, and savors the taste of the treats in secret. 

Dejun is the nicest person Kun knows on the whole estate. Aside from the dead. If ever, when he’s chewing, Kun feels the presence of one of the many spirits, nose to nose, he imagines they too might be pretending to enjoy it. 

  
  
  


Dejun aside, there’s only one person on the estate Kun isn’t frightened of. And that’s because he never sees her. That’s the mistress of the house. Kun knows barely anything about her. She’s a willowy figure who rarely leaves her rooms. More ghostlike than the ghosts themselves. And there aren’t any portraits of her like there are of the master. 

Sometimes Kun hears her weeping. At night, during the day, it doesn’t matter when. One just knows that, at the sound of her tears, to steer clear and stay focused, for if the master gets wind, all hell will break loose. Furniture flies, and dishes shatter to the floor. Kun’s been nearly blown over by a stray spirit fleeing the scene, and he had to shelter in place behind a statue just to recover from the cries reverberating in his inner ear, part woman and part ghost, intermingled. 

“He’d never hurt her, of course, he wouldn’t,” pleads one of the mistress’s servants to the visiting local doctor, a man with skin so pale Kun wonders if he won’t faint himself one day. 

“Of course not. Of course not. It’s just… with her condition… and the situation…” He pauses at the sound of the servant’s hissing gasp. “Of… well, her son…”

Because that’s the clincher right there. 

Dong Sicheng.

“I just want to be sure she is well enough to… deal with what must come,” the doctor concludes. 

Dong Sicheng, son and heir. And the only memory Kun has is almost fifteen years old, back when Kun himself was barely able to take the stairs two at a time and he saw a child shrouded in blankets, pale face with a mop of black hair, being handed from the arms of his mother to a manservant who stowed him away into a carriage that drove off, never to return. 

“It’s true, then?” asks the servant. “He’s really coming home? Oh, the poor mistress!”

The doctor shushes her quickly, and from Kun’s hiding spot in the shadows of the hallway during his ill-timed walk to the kitchens, he sees the doctor flushing and looking around, as if to verify they won’t be overheard. Too late, Kun thinks. With or without himself saying something, a rumor like this will all over the estate within hours. 

“I can’t verify when,” whispers the doctor. “But soon. Definitely, soon.”

The servant covers her face with her hands, more hope reflected there than Kun’s seen on anyone his entire life. “And is he… you know? Cured?”

“Now that, unfortunately, I cannot say.”

  
  
  


Kun is right. About many things. By the time the clouds burst over the estate, blanketing everything in its path with harsh rains, and the sun has almost disappeared from the afternoon sky, everybody knows. 

From the outdoor laborers to the maidservants, everyone is talking about it in rushed voices. He catches the kitchen hands not even whispering about it when he steals in to deliver a basket of clean linens. Dejun catches his eye, but they don’t speak. He’s also one of the few people in there smart enough not to be caught gossiping. Sure enough, the head of the kitchen marches out moments later. Kun is already long gone when the cries of pain begin. 

They’re wondering what’s going to happen if the rumors are true. Which Kun happens to know are probably true. 

The young master returns. An event like this will either be monumentious, or tragic, or both. How things will change, nobody knows. But everything will change, that’s for certain. 

Kun busies himself for the rest of the day, only speaking to Mrs Yang and being scolded for minor offenses. She’s as close-lipped as ever. The ghost that lives on the back stairway isn’t. 

When Kun goes to bed he’s added another’s memory to the confusing image of young master Sicheng, the poster child of joy and delight and mischief, running down the halls with a puppy in his arms and a cacophony of mayhem behind. For the rest of the night, Kun dreams of that beaming toddler, that beautiful boy, turning uncomfortably in his bedsheets when it morphs into his own memory of the sobbing child shunted out the manor and away from their lives forever.

  
  
  


Sicheng comes home, of course, in the middle of the night. 

Kun hasn’t been sleeping well. Sometimes the ghosts will leave him alone, but more often in the night, they enjoy being awake in the darkness. And they keep Kun awake too. So he hears through his open window when the carriage wheels sound down the gravel road. 

_It’s him_ , whispers the ghost. Kun wishes he knew his name. He’s the friendliest of the lot. Has saved him from many a scuffle throughout Kun’s long miserable life. 

Him? 

_Sicheng_. 

The son and heir returned. 

Kun walks to the window, pushes the shutters away. He lives in the attic like many of the servants, but no one likes this room. It’s small, cramped, always muggy, and well-haunted. That part at least, Kun doesn’t mind. 

The path below is shrouded in the night fog. But there, coming toward the house, is a carriage light. Its low flame flickers through the mist. A single horse labors closer, its driver covered in a heavy wool jacket, his face hidden. 

Kun doesn’t hold his breath in anticipation. As far as he knows, this is just the start of another chapter in the life of the estate. Life isn’t going to get better. It might even get worse. But he waits nevertheless until the carriage stops. Only two servants from the household are there to greet him. A man steps lightly out of the carriage and Kun spends a short moment being confused at his appearance. Then, the man turns around, holds out his arm, and another figure emerges instead. 

Tall, lean face, hair black as midnight. Heavily covered in coats and blankets. He moves like death itself. Slow, laborious. His weight is supported by the man who has accompanied him. Ages it takes for them to reach the steps of the house, and they disappear from view. 

Kun goes back to sleep. This time he doesn’t dream. 

  
  
  
  
  


For all that Kun expected change, it doesn’t happen immediately. A whole day goes by. Everyone on the estate is aware that something is different. A few have guessed the younger master is home. There is silence from the mistress’s wing of the house. 

The master left the morning after his son’s return. Kun doesn’t even bother doing the math, though many around him have speculated something is off. The long-known fact of how the master has never tolerated hearing even the slightest word about his son. There are now even more rumors about his illness. Or is it an injury? What could have been so severe that he was sent away as a child and is only now returning as a man? 

Kun doesn’t join in their speculations. He has other avenues of information. 

Days go by. Then a week. Two weeks.

The tension in the house is palpable. The servants of the mistress are tight-lipped but shaken, testy, easily pressed. They argue over the meals sent to feed the young master. They scold the laundry. Even Kun’s Mrs Yang is grumbling more of late and snapping at her underlings, Kun included. 

  
  


It’s late in the evening one day when Kun turns a corner and runs right into another figure. He barely recognizes him. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!” Kun cries, immediately throwing his head down to bow over and again, and again one more time before he drops to his knees to pick up the pile of linens he’s dropped. Some of them will have to be refolded. 

The other man kneels down too. Kun is beyond shocked. 

“You don’t… have...to…”

But the man doesn't reply. Instead, he picks up a few of the sheets, rumples them up in a manner that’s entirely unhelpful, but nice overall in that he hands them over to Kun. 

“Thank you… you didn’t have to help. My fault, it’s all my fault, Mr…?”

“It’s Doyoung. No ‘mister’ please. And of course, I know I didn’t have to. However, you did run into me and thus this mess.” 

“I’m….”

“Please, just stop,” says Doyoung with a sigh. Kun can tell the man is already far away in his thoughts, far from Kun and this ridiculous minor accident.

Kun swallows his last apology, stands quickly, and moves to the side. Doyoung whisks past and out Kun’s sight without another word. 

So that… is the young master’s personal servant? 

  
  
  


Kun doesn’t see him again for several days. He’s heard, of course, from the servant’s gossip that this Doyoung person is tight-lipped and severe, never conversing longer with another servant longer than is absolutely required. Most have heard fewer words than even Kun, and Doyoung apparently visits the kitchen at least once a day. 

The cook’s assistant is practically in tears after one of Doyoung’s latest departures. 

Kun, just stealing indoors after a whole morning slugging away at the laundry, makes eyes at Dejun who sneaks over eventually to whisper, “Something about the young master’s meals. He doesn’t like them.”

“Doesn’t like what?” 

“The food. All of it. Doesn’t matter how it’s made. It’s like he-”

The doors open suddenly. They disperse before the head cook can find them gossiping and Kun flees down the back hallway. He hears the woman scolding the cook’s assistant once more, even though it sounds like the poor man has tried everything already, to no avail. 

  
  
  


Kun doesn’t sleep that night. The ghost occupying the foot of his bed wants to talk all night. Kun can’t understand most of his ramblings. It’s like that sometimes. He feels some of their impressions, their memories, occasionally a word or two, sometimes a whole sentence. But something tonight has his ghostly friend more on edge than usual. 

He stares out the window instead. It’s near to the full moon, whose light shines down upon Kun’s room, but there’s an eerie silence outside. Contrast that to the mumblings of the ghost and it has the hairs on Kun’s arms standing up in protest. 

Something itches from within, a compelling desire to… inexplicably… leave his room… perhaps do a walk around through the night’s darkened halls… 

Before he can do something stupid though like that follow that up, Kun slams his head down on the pillow and throws another pillow over his ears. Sleep, that’s what he should do. That would be wiser… definitely wiser.

The next day, however, Kun gives up his wise nature. He’s standing in the hallway watching a frozen-in-place Dejun hovering outside the young master’s corridor, meal tray in his arms. 

“Dejun?”

The other servant jumps, dishes and cups wobbling precariously for a moment before he recovers. 

“Uh- Oh, Kun. Hi.”

Kun already knows what’s happening. Dejun drew the unlucky straw, has become the unluckiest soul of the day. 

In his peripheral, Kun can see the hallway ghost with worried eyes. His fright, even Dejun’s fright is real. 

“I’ll take it.”

“What?” Dejun turns around, startled. The dishes wobble again, but Kun cooly steals the tray from him. 

“I said, I’ll take it. Wait here for me and I’ll bring back the tray.”

Dejun’s shocked but profuse thanks follow Kun all the way down the hall. 

It’s silent in this wing of the house, too silent. Kun knows where he’s going though. Before it was occupied, Kun had a few duties sorting the linens and clearing out the cupboards in a variety of rooms, including the one he knows the young master has to be occupying now. 

He stops before a door at the end of the hall, knocking softly.

It opens a few moments later than should be necessary. Doyoung’s impassive face greets him.

“What is it? Breakfast?”

Kun copies Doyoung’s face as best he can. No emotion, no expression. “Breakfast for the young master, Mister Doyoung.”

“Oh?”

Doyoung looks over it briefly, scowls. “And what about _my_ breakfast?”

As for that, it’s a hiccup Kun did not foresee. “I uh… all I know is…”

“Yes, yes, I know. Very well, come in. Your kitchen wants to see me starve and the young master poisoned, it’s the same every morning. Hurry up.”

“Thank you, Mister Doyoung.”

“And don’t call me _mister_.”

“Sir,” asks Kun stoically, “how should I address you then?”

“You don’t have to address me at all.”

  
  
  


Kun’s first impression of the young master isn’t anything he imagined. For a figure so larger than life in the minds of the household, both living and dead, Dong Sicheng, only son and heir, reclines in an armchair in the sitting room, blankets wrapped his ankles, legs, and lap, two soft and fluffy slippers at his feet. He makes the chair seem too small, too short. Aside from that, his face, now that Kun can finally see it, is regal, bored, almost unto death. His hair is black as midnight, uncombed, and the bangs a little too long. 

He throws a glance at Kun and his pupils are dark, a bold stare that lasts too long before he slowly looks away, out through the open window. The room is freezing. 

“Y-young Master,” says Kun deferentially, head slightly bowed.

Doyoung is the one who answers. “You can put it on the table there.”

Kun sets it down flawlessly. He’s not sure what he expected to happen in here, but he bows one last time before turning to leave. Does this perhaps give him some fodder to share with the others? How he finally saw the young master. It’s not like Kun has anyone to talk to, other than Dejun who was obviously too terrified to even enter. Maybe to one of the ghosts? He can feel the one from the hallway has followed him halfway here. Kun runs into the spirit peering through the doorway. He can only feel its presence but he nods anyway as if imploring the ghost to leave with him. 

That’s when the young master speaks. 

“You don’t work in the kitchen, do you?”

The voice is deep and low, still with an air of indifference. Kun feels its gravity regardless.

He turns. “No, sir, I don’t.”

“What’s your name, then?”

“Kun, sir. I work in the laundry.”

“And the man whose job you have evidently borrowed this morning?”

Kun thinks of Dejun waiting petrified outside but he doesn’t think he can lie and get away with it. 

“Dejun, sir.”

“Hmm.” 

The young master looks away, frowning over the breakfast dishes with disdain. He doesn’t move at all or make like he’s about to eat. 

“Do you know how to cook at all, Kun?”

“No, sir.”

“And I suppose you’ve lived here most of your life so you wouldn’t even know what good food is supposed to taste like?”

There’s really no good response to that so Kun just nods. The meal presented to the young master is loads fancier than what the servants are given to eat

“A pity.”

Kun waits, unsure if he’s been dismissed or if Sicheng is properly done with his interrogation. The ghost also is now wrapped around him, almost like a sign of protection. 

All of a sudden, Sicheng laughs. His head falls back, and it’s not a loud sound nor does it last long but for several seconds, the young master looks amused, even pleasant. As if years have been drawn off his face. For the first time, Kun gets a glimpse of who this young man might have become if things were different. Or perhaps he still is. 

Sicheng says, with a glance over Kun’s shoulder, “I’m not going to eat him, Taeil. No need for such posturing.”

Kun gulps even as he feels the spirit around him tense. 

“Who… who is Taeil?” he dares to ask.

Sicheng suddenly looks him straight in the eye. His smile falls away but his face is still halfway pleasant. 

“You don’t know his name? Your friend there. His name is Taeil. He’s a little sneak, always creeping up here to spy on me. You make interesting acquaintances… uh, what was your name again?”

“Kun, sir.”

“Kun. That’s right. I’m Sicheng.”

“I… know, sir.”

That brings back another smile. Sicheng sighs and cuddles further into the back of his too-small armchair, eyes drifting once more outside to the window.

“Do you know Jeno too? I miss him.”

“J-Jeno?” 

“The ghost who lives by the stream. Under the dead tree. Likes to skip pebbles. Always jolly.”

To say Kun is shocked is no understatement. He thought he was the only one who knew the ghosts of this place, and he never even knew their names. Sicheng, for all that he hasn’t lived here in years, seems to know them intimately.

“So his name is Jeno,” says Kun more to himself. When he glances again at Sicheng, he finds the man looking right back at him. “I, see him every few days, I guess, sir.”

“He’s still there, then?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. I really do miss him. He was so nice to me when I was little… especially after… well… just _after_. You don’t need to keep standing there, Kun. I understand you probably have lots to do today than humor me. But please, do take Taeil with you. And tell Jeno I said hello. I’ll have to visit him soon. Good day to you.”

“Good day to you too... sir.”


	2. Chapter 2

The next few days go by in a blur. Even without sharing his encounter with the young master, everyone seems to know something is different about Kun. Perhaps Dejun was forced to confess, but if so then no one directly says anything about it to Kun. Instead, more and more of the servants give him curious looks, or make a rather larger circle around him if they happen to pass in the hall. Once, Kun crosses paths with a young woman with large, scared eyes who almost shrieks when she sees Kun coming. 

Kun doesn’t understand the reason for this change, but after a couple of days it doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with the strange young master upstairs. 

“Haunted… that’s right, I swear, he’s haunted…”

Kun catches those words behind him after he rounds a corner one early evening. He stops. Around him these last few days he’s noticed extra ghostly activity wherever he goes, as if more and more of his deathly friends have been hanging about Kun especially. The ones in his attic bedroom have been venturing down the stairs with him. The ghost who lives on the servants’ staircase has actually followed him into the kitchen. Taeil, the now-named hallway ghost, goes with him virtually  _ everywhere _ . It’s like they’ve finally been given permission to wander forth and they use Kun as their conduit. 

Permission from who though? Well, Kun has an idea, just no one to talk to about it. Besides, it’s also the full moon and he’s noticed for years that the ghosts get more and more restless around each full moon. Just they’ve never been  _ this _ bizarre about it before. 

The night of the full moon Kun has an instinct that perhaps, he shouldn’t go to sleep. Normally he can’t for all the ghosts’ chatter which keeps him up late. 

This time, however, the ghosts are silent. Present, but silent. And something about their silent pull lulls Kun into a deeper sleep than ever before. No waking up in the middle of the night, no stirring at the late-night sounds. Just the comfort of his friends, the ghosts, protecting him in the night. 

“You heard it, didn’t you!?”

The kitchen the following morning is abuzz with chatter. They don’t even silence themselves when Kun enters. 

“That howl?” 

“ _ I  _ heard it.”

“Almost wet my bed, I did.”

A few of the servants glance up at Kun’s entrance, but for once they’re too jittery about whatever it is that Kun somehow missed. 

Kun catches Dejun’s eyes above the hushed whispers and speculations. When he leaves a few minutes later, Dejun follows him out. Kun checks that no one is listening to them. Besides Taeil, there’s no one there. 

“What’s all this about?” he asks. 

Dejun looks about as spooked as all the rest. “You really didn’t hear it? It was horrifying?”

“Hear what? Something howling?” 

The manor is situated deep into the country, of course there are wild animals about. At least once a year, the master invites a posse of people from the city for a week of shooting and hunting game. It causes chaos within the household, ridiculous requests from within the guests, and by the end of the week, the entire estate is trashed. Kun is usually called upon to help clean up the grounds and he’s seen plenty of the what the guests decided not to bother taking home, usually the bodies of small predators like foxes. A few times, some smallish wolves. The same animals who live in the brush beyond the estate and pester the gamekeepers but no one else. 

“It was loud. I can’t believe you didn’t hear it.” 

Privately, Kun agrees with Dejun. He’s no stranger to animal noises at night, even with his bedroom situated so high above. Yet last night, he missed it all. 

“I don’t know. I guess I slept too hard.”

Dejun is shaking his head as if he still can’t believe it. 

“No, no, like it was so loud… it sounded like came, from  _ inside the house. _ ”

A door opens near them and Kun and Dejun scatter, Dejun’s gossip paused indefinitely. 

_What_ _did I miss?_ Kun asks himself, and the ghosts, absentmindedly. Strangely, this time, they have no answer. 

  
  


A few days go by, then a week. The house has settled back into its normal routine especially since there was no repeat of those disturbing howls. They still keep acting strangely around Kun though. He’s grown more or less used to it. Sicheng’s words, however, often come back to make him ponder. Sicheng had named the ghosts, addressed them almost personally. No one else in this entire estate has ever done that. Even  _ Kun _ hadn’t known their names. 

It makes him wonder more. A lot about Taeil, especially about Jeno. 

_ You don’t ever leave the house, do you?  _ He asks Taeil one day. 

The ghost has rarely answered him with words before. Normally he uses feelings, or images that pop straight into Kun’s mind. 

Taeil answers similarly this time with a feeling of regret. 

_ Can you? _ Kun asks again. 

A feeling of hopeless curiosity. 

_ Probably not then _ . 

Sure enough, by the time Kun has dodged the few remaining servants lingering around the grounds  _ and _ Old Mrs Yang, so that he isn’t roped into yet more duties, Taeil’s presence is gone, held in place by whatever source keeps it grounded to the manor. 

Kun hasn’t visited the hideaway by the stream in a long time, not since before his encounter with Doyoung and the young master. He’s been thinking of the ghost too much, almost like a friend he hasn’t visited enough. 

He passes the broken bench, crosses underneath the ill-spotted leaves of the ancient tree which hides the way to the stream. 

Unlike most times he’s come here though, there are voices up ahead. Happy voices, laughter. It doesn’t even occur to Kun that someone else might be here enjoying the view and that perhaps he should go back. Kun continues forward. It’s not that much of a shock when he sees who this strange visitor actually is. 

“Y-Young Master…”

His final approach had drawn the eyes of Sicheng and Doyoung, seated together on a log. There’s a small pile of rocks before their feet. 

Sicheng pauses, pulls back his hand mid-throw with a small pebble still between his fingers. Slowly, the smile on his face fades into that neutral presence Kun remembers from before. 

“Ah, it’s you. Forgive me, I don’t remember your name.”

“Kun, sir.”

“Hmm. That’s right.” 

Doyoung hasn’t spoken, but his lips are pressed tight in disapproval, evidently not liking this interruption. He looks away and skips a rock on his own. 

Sicheng is not quite so detached. He bids Kun come forward. “Did you come for some light recreation?” 

“Uhh, just… a walk.”

“Is that right.”

Like the last time he saw him, Sicheng is bundled up tight. Despite the late season, the weather doesn’t seem cold enough for the layers upon layers the young master has dressed himself in. There’s a very thick woolen jacket, a fur-lined hood, and one very long scarf wrapped three times around his neck. His left his is gloved, only the right glove having been discarded, Kun guesses, in order to skip rocks. 

Doyoung wears only a light coat, like Kun, and no gloves. 

“Sit. Please?”

With the young master being so polite, Kun can only obey. As he perches on another log, a part of him works to detect Jeno. 

The ghost appears to be on the opposite side of the small stream. Sure enough, as Doyoung’s pebble drops into the water, another one comes skipping from the other side. The three of them watch it dance across the surface, three, four, five, six,  _ seven  _ times before it’s swallowed up by the water. 

Sicheng smiles broadly. “He’s been practicing. I’m jealous.”

“Of a ghost, sir?”

A second later, Kun pins his lips shut, fearing himself impertinent. To his surprise, Sicheng doesn’t reprimand him at all. Rather, he continues the conversation. 

“There are a lot of things I am jealous of, Kun. Ghosts, mainly for their dedication to certain skills.”

Sicheng throws his own pebble and it barely skips once before disappearing into the stream. 

“See, like that.”

Doyoung scoffs. It must be in friendly jest though, because to Kun’s surprise, Sicheng fake frowns and gives him a weak shove. Doyoung doesn’t budge. 

“I’m hungry,” says Sicheng instead. “Go get me something.”

For a moment Kun assumes he means for Kun to get up. But then Doyoung sighs like a truly long-suffering friend and hikes back toward the manor. 

Once the sound of his footsteps are gone, silence threatens to engulf them tenfold. Only the slow trickle of the stream continues on. Even Jeno has gone silent, though Kun feels him float closer, to their side of the bank. He sits on the spot vacated by Doyoung. 

Sicheng closes his eyes, wrapping his ungloved hand around his body and shivering as if suffering from a particularly cold breeze. 

Kun can’t keep from asking, “Young Master, are you alright?”

Sicheng’s eyes pop open. He smiles. “Mostly, thank you, Kun.” 

For someone so grand and terrifying in the eyes of the entire household, Kun can’t help comparing Sicheng to some kind of particularly fluffy animal. Passive, cozy, warm, comfortable. And somewhere under all that is a sickness no one quite understands aside from perhaps his parents and at least one local doctor. Something which has to do possibly with a lowered body temperature, if the way he’s always dressed, inside and out, is to count. 

A feeling of compassion engrosses them both. It’s from Jeno. 

Sicheng hums. 

“Thank you, Jeno, I really am fine.”

Kun is kind of used to that kind of thing. The ghost here has always been that way, friendly, comforting, especially during those childhood years which for Kun are now a blur. Jeno, even when his name was unknown, was like a friend to him. It’s obviously a personality trait. 

“Have you known him long, young master?”

Sicheng smiles. “Jeno. Yes.” 

Like most of the ghosts in the estate, Jeno has an old aura about him. As if he died long, long ago. 

“Jeno was my first friend. When I was little,” Sicheng continues. 

There’s an inviting tone to his voice. Kun doesn’t hesitate to add, “I guess, he was mine too.”

“You grew up around here?” asks Sicheng.

“Yes.”

“Where were you born?”

“I… I don’t exactly know. I don’t remember much from when I was really little.”

“Hmmm. That’s not entirely strange. The way my father has run this place, and his father before him.” 

Sicheng is decidedly critical. He goes on. “When I was young I thought everyone lived as charmed of a life as I did. That everyone had a wonderful life like I did. Then… well, then things happened.”

Kun doesn’t share those images the ghosts had given him of the young and happy version of Sicheng. They always seemed so alien, far away. In all his life, Kun has experienced very few delightful emotions like that. He can’t perceive them at all. And despite being surrounded by people all the time, with the way they live here, he’s never grown close to anyone. A few boys when he was younger, but they were eventually sent away. More servants were hired, more left, a revolving door of bodies, with those who stayed put hunkering down, never opening up for fear of losing their own positions. 

What would happen if Kun ever left this place? He has no idea. He’d probably miss the ghosts though. 

Sicheng shivers again. Kun looks about them, looking for the breeze that should have caused it. Again there is nothing and Kun remains unbothered by anything except the silence of the stream. He doesn't ask about what happened to the young master, doesn’t think he’ll be granted and answer. And anyway, it’s not his place. Maybe it’s Doyoung’s place. He asks about him instead. 

“When did you meet Doyoung?”

Sicheng smiles as if remembering some old joke. “Him? Not long after I was sent away.”

“Is he your…” Kun doesn’t know what word to ask without insulting… whatever Doyoung actually is. Fortunately, Sicheng reads him. 

“Is he my servant? Yes, and no. More like a companion gifted to me when I needed one. His family is old, but not affluent.”

That’s more information that Kun probably needed to know. 

“The staff are terrified of him,” Kun says instead. 

Sicheng outright smirks. 

“That’s Doyoung, alright. A good friend. Loyal to the fault, I don’t know why. I suspect he’d died for me if it came to that.”

“Would you ask him to?” says Kun. 

The mirth on Sicheng’s face disappears almost instantly. He looks at Kun, whose cheeks are inflamed. What on  _ earth _ possessed him to say something so stupid. He gulps and stares at the river. Even Jeno’s hackles are raised. Out of nowhere, a rock skips across the stream but drops on the third bounce. 

Sicheng says slowly, “What’s the point of asking about him. Would  _ you _ ?”

Kun takes a deep breath, steeling his nerves. “No.”

Then he holds his breath again, waiting for a rebuttal. 

To his surprise, Sicheng laughs again softly. “That’s a good answer, actually. There are very few people worth dying for in this world, actually. And the best ones, are already dead.” 

By the time Doyoung returns, a deep feeling of sorrow has blanketed the whole area. Kun feels that his time here has come to an end. Sicheng is chatting softly with Jeno. As usual, the ghosts never vocally replies. Kun feels like an unwelcome third entity. 

“I should go,” he says. 

Sicheng doesn’t respond. Doyoung takes Kun’s seat on the log, and Kun hastens back to the manor. 

  
  
  


As it always does, time passes bizarrely on the estate. Winter closes in fast. The first snowfall comes, covers the ground for a day, then melts, leaving behind a muddy mess and an ever building workload for Kun who spends half his days wringing out clothes and linens over frigid basins of water. The skin of his hands are cracked and stinging, forearms dry like death. 

He doesn’t run into Sicheng again, though from time to time he sees Doyoung’s shadow as he marches down the halls of the estate, making requests which continue to perplex the servants or terrify them into submission. 

Then, one day, Doyoung seeks him out. 

Kun is done with his workday, already in his room sprawled upon his bed. He’s not ready to sleep. It’s too early for that, but his body aches and the ghosts are good company. 

Doyoung knocks once, then opens the door himself. 

“Hello..? Oh, it’s you…” Kun sits up hastily. 

“Do you sew?”

There’s no other greeting, just that. Kun blinks at him. “Y-Yes?”

“Good. Young Master wants you to fix these clothes. And  _ don’t _ show them to anybody else, understand?”

Unexpectedly, Doyoung hesitates. Then he crosses the room, slowly hands out a bundle of clothes so that Kun can take it. It’s all very polite in contrast to his words, but Kun is still confused. 

“I’m not… an expert though. Is that okay?”

Doyoung frowns. “Doesn’t matter too much. No one will see these other than Young Master. Just, if you can fix them, he would be pleased.”

  
  
  


The tears in the clothes Doyoung gave him are even more strange than Kun anticipated. He assumed some small rips, tears, worn-out seams and the like. Instead, the shirt he opens up has a massive rip up the middle of the back and both sleeves similarly destroyed. He can only stare at the shirt for a long time in wonder. Some parts of the shirt, especially around the collar, have strange piercing holes. Lower down, half the buttons are still in their buttonholes, but for some reason, it’s the back that is torn open. He shakes his head and examines the rest. 

The pair of trousers looks halfway gone. It’s a wonder Doyoung thought they could be saved. Kun is of the opinion all the clothes are beyond repair and he should just start from scratch to make something new. However, that isn’t what was asked of him.

Kun gets out the small sewing kit he keeps in the drawer beside his bed. It’s a rudimentary set of needles and thread, usually to keep up the mend on his own clothes rather than risk the ire of asking someone else. A moment later he puts them all away. It would be impossible to repair with just a single needle like this. He thinks instead about the sewing machine downstairs. 

Every last one of the ghosts in his room accompanies him down the stairs. Kun collects Taeil last and they continue down together. He doesn’t bother lighting a candle. He knows this part of the estate too well. Also the last time he almost tripped down the stairs, someone had held him up and kept him from falling. 

Still, to anyone else, the darkness would be scary. Kun tries to imagine it from someone else’s perspective, were they to run into them. Kun, with his collection of ghostly followers, stealthily sneaking through the house. 

The sewing machine is in a darkened side room near the kitchen. Nobody but the cook sleeps this close to the room but Kun knows from experience the cook is a sound sleeper. 

Kun lights a single candle in the room after assuring himself the door is shut tight. The candle flickers once, catches the reflection of one of the ghosts. Its very young face doesn’t even catch Kun off guard. He’s seen it before. At night like this, they’re always more present, visible, solid. 

“Would you mind, please?” he whispers to the ones crowding him up close. 

A breeze wafts through the completely closed up room. Kun breathes, feeling more comfortable in his skin as he sits down to examine the sewing machine he’s only used a few times before. It’s the pride and glory of Mrs Yang’s possession, though of course it doesn’t belong to  _ her _ . That’s why Kun thinks it’ll be alright to use it, in secret, in the dark of the night. 

He starts with the trousers first, adding extra fabric he finds in the scrap baskets surrounding the machine. With his foot on the pedal, the sewing machine hums to life. He can almost feel the awe of the ghosts around him, most of whom would likely have been dead long before the birth of this machine’s existence. 

The work is still slow, and painstaking. Kun could only risk lighting one of the candles in the room. After a few minutes’ work, however, another one springs to life. He nods his thanks but keeps going, eyes squinting in the still near darkness. Eventually, he decides the trousers are the best they’re going to be. He holds up his work aghast, wondering yet again why on earth the young master would bother fixing such a thing rather than having new clothes made from scratch. 

Kun is halfway done with the shirt, sewing up one of the buttons by hand, when he hears a creak coming down the hallway outside the door. 

He pauses. There’s another creak, definitely a footstep. But Kun has nowhere to run and hardly anywhere to hide. It could just be another servant sneaking around, it could also be Mrs Yang… In fact, the longer he listens to the gait of the footsteps, he’s absolutely sure it’s her. 

He watches, as if in slow motion, the turn of the door handle. Then the door creaks open, and sure enough, there is Mrs Yang’s face lit up by candlelight, an insidious expression upon her face like she just  _ knew _ she was going to catch someone down here and now all her wildest’s dreams are coming true. 

“Kun?? It’s you,” she whispers hoarsely. 

With nothing to say to his defense other than Doyoung’s or the young master’s name, Kun is for some reason reluctant to use this. 

“Uhm..”

But there’s another voice just behind her. 

“I told you, aunt, someone was stealing stuff!”

It’s a young man Kun barely recognizes in the dark. Someone from the kitchens with a name Kun has never bothered to memorize, and apparently a relative of Mrs Yang which is probably how he got his job.

“It seems you were right.” There’s a wicked glare on her face, the kind that’s sure to get him fired for good. Kun’s often wondered what would happen to him if that were to happen. Anyone tossed out of the estate is nerve heard from again. Would that be preferable to growing old and dying here, Kun doesn’t know. But before a few weeks ago, there was no fate Kun wasn’t scared of. Now, with the needle oddly steady in his hands, the young master’s clothes laying over his lap, he’s nervous. 

“I wasn’t stealing,” he says calmly. 

“Is that so…” says Mrs Yang, happy to disbelieve. 

Kun would never be scared of an old woman. Eager to avoid her, yes, but never scared. However, the man behind her is a different story. Kun guesses in a matter of seconds that his job here is probably not secure. The kitchen staff has more turnover than any other department. If Kun is sent away, he’ll no doubt get Kun’s old spot. Worse yet, the man is much taller than Kun, heavier built with arms that could definitely patch a punch. 

“I’ll take care of this, aunt,” he says, pushing up his sleeves and stepping past the old woman. 

In a heartbeat, Kun drops the needle and the clothes and stands up, taking a step backward. The button hits the floorboards and rolls off ominously into a corner. The candles flicker. 

That shouldn’t happen. There’s still no natural breeze in this part of the house. Which can only mean one thing. 

“No,” he whispers. 

But the air around him grows dark. His breath contracts. Something solid stands before him, and next to him, one side and the other. 

The man is too new here. He definitely hasn’t heard the rumors about Kun, or he paid them no mind. Because he steps forward too confidently and he’s not looking at Kun or anywhere in particular, cracking his knuckles and all too happy to take his time readying this beating, and so he  _ just doesn’t see _ what’s about to happen to him. 

One of the candles flickers out with a pop. 

Kun steps back again, behind the line of ghosts whose bodies are growing ever more present. Mrs Yang’s eyes begin to widen, not yet in fear, but something growing close to it, as if she hasn’t yet started to trust her eyes. 

“Wait,” she says, nervously. Her nephew doesn’t listen. He takes one solid windup and in a move Kun would consider comical anywhere else, releases his punch.

The other candle dies. 

“Owww, what the-!”

Kun doesn’t bother to duck, trusting nothing will hit him. But the man hasn’t realized this. In the darkness, he assumes Kun must have tried to hit him back. His large body stumbles in retreat, but his anger grows. This time Kun does duck and he closes his eyes, if only not to see what’s about to happen. 

Then, suddenly. 

“What is going on here!?”

Both candles flicker back to life. Kun pries one eyelid open. The sound of that voice sounds oddly too similar….

“I said, what’s going on here?” 

Mrs Yang cowers in the doorway until the figure comes into view. Then, she visibly shifts and starts groveling. 

“Y-Young master? Young master, my nephew and I found a thief. It’s no bother to you. Please, we can handle this.”

“You can  _ handle _ this?”

Sicheng is standing large and ominous in the doorway, having forced the older woman inside the room, hers and her nephew’s back to Kun. 

“Please tell me,  _ how _ are you handling this?” 

Sicheng’s eyes sweep slowly through the room. He takes in Mrs Yang, then her nephew with his shirtsleeves rolled up and the bruise on his knuckle. He looks at Kun, kneeling on the floor, the sewing machine, the clothes Kun dropped on the ground. Then one by one at each of the murderous, defensive faces surrounding him. 

“Kun is here at my bidding, Mrs Yang. I expect you can head back to bed now.” 

The woman can barely comprehend his words. She looks up at him aghast, then at Kun. “Your- Your bidding? Young master, I didn’t know-”

“I said, you can  _ leave  _ now, Mrs Yang.”

She doesn’t hesitate a second more, bowing and apologizing profusely as she grabs the arm of her nephew to drag him through the door. 

But Sicheng has one more request. “And please, never let me see even a  _ glimpse _ of this man on the estate, again.”

Her gasp is audible, but the young master’s orders brook no argument. Both of them disappear noisily down the hallway unless at last there’s the slam of a door from far away, and silence reigns once again. 

Kun stands up. His ghost brigade has cooled completely, most of them drifting off into the corners of the room. The only ghost who remains is Taeil who, surprisingly, was not with the rest of the ghosts, but was in fact  _ behind _ Sicheng. His ghostly face beams briefly in pride. Kun can already guess what happened. 

“Are you alright?”

There’s nothing particularly warm about Sicheng’s tone of voice. His expression remains impassive, his posture alert. However, for the first time tonight Kun is aware of just how  _ tired _ he looks. How fast did he move to get down here to save Kun on just the warning of a  _ ghost _ ?

“I’m alright, sir.”

“That’s good.” He looks down at Kun’s feet. 

Kun quickly bends to retrieve the young master’s clothes from the rumpled pile they’ve become on the floor. “Sorry, sir. I was… alarmed.”

“Alarmed, and yet you have so many defenders in this house. More than I do, anyway.” He tilts his head nonchalantly. “Finish soon and go back to bed, Kun.” 

Kun is still bowing his thanks when Sicheng disappears, nearly as fast as he came. It’s a whirlwind and Kun doesn’t know what to think about it except to do as he said. He sits down before remembering how he lost the needle and the button, and it takes him far too long to find them because  _ none _ of the ghosts seem keen to help him now. Half an hour later he finishes the task, blows out the two candles on his own, and sneaks back up the stairs to his attic room. 

  
  
  


Doyoung fetches the shirt and trousers the next morning. He doesn’t say anything about last night, leaving Kun to assume he either doesn’t know (unlikely) or was told to keep quiet. 

Midmorning, Kun runs into Mrs Yang for the first time that day. She barely acknowledges him other to assign him a few mundane chores. Kun never sees her nephew again. 

Life goes on for another week. Then, a disturbance. 

  
  


Kun wakes up in the night, and it’s not unlike that first darkened night when Sicheng came home. Only instead, it’s the master’s carriage returning, with three more carriages, six riders on horseback, and a wagon full of hunting gear.

The master of the house is back. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [@shinealightrose](https://twitter.com/ShineALightRose)


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